The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-12-01

chants, or the mechanics life.
know you have at the beginning many
a hard time, but after awhile these things
will become easy. You will have your
own master. Gods sentence will be sat-
isfied. You will be discharged from
prison. Bless God that you have brain
to think and hands to work and feet to
walk with, for tin your constant activity,
0 young man, is one of your strongest de-
lenses. Put your trust in God and do
your level best. That child had it right
when the horse ran away with the load
of wood and he sat upon it. When
asked if he was frightened he said: "No;
l prayed to God and hung on like a
beaver"
Again, profound respect for the Sab
bath will be to the young man a power
full preservative against evil. God has
thrust into the toll and fatigue of life
recreative day, when the soul is especially
to be fed. 1t is no new-fangled notion
of wld-brained reformer, but
an institution established at the
beginning. God has made natural and
moral laws so harmonious that the body
as well as the soul demands this instit u
ton. Our bodies are seven-day clo:ks,
that must be wound up as often as that,
or they will run down. Failure must come
sooner or later to the man who breaks the
Sabbath. Inspiration has called it the
Lords Day, and he who devotes it to the
world is guilty of robbery. God will not
let the sin go unpublished either in this
world or the world to come.
While the divine frown mutt rest upon
him who tramples upon this statute, Gods
special favor will be upon that young man
who scrupulously observes it. This day,
properly observed, will throw a hallowed
influence over all the week. The song,
and sermon, and sanctuary will hold back
from presumptuous scenes. That young
man who begins the duties of life
with either secret or open disrespect
of the holy dav, l venture to prophesy,
will meet with no prominent sue.
cesses. Gods curse will fall upon his
ship, his store, his office, his studio, his
body and his soul. The way of the wicked
he turneth upside down. In one of the
old fables it was said that a wonderful
child was born in Ba gdad and magician
could hear his footsteps six thousand
miles away. But 1 can hear in the foot.
step of that young man on his way to the
house of worship this morning, step not
| only of a lifetime of usefulness, but the
| coming step of eternal joys of heavens
yet millions of miles away.
Again, noble ideal, aud confident ex-
pectation of approximating to it, will in
fallibly advance. The artist completes in
his mind the great thought that he wishes
to transfer to the canvas Or the marble
before he takes up the crayon or the
chisel. The architect plans out the
! entire structure before he or
| ders the workmen to begin, and. though
there may for a long while seem to be
nothing but laundering and rudeness, he
has in his mind every Corinthian wreath
| and Gothic arch and Byzantine capital.
The poet arranges the entire plot before he
begins to chime the first canto of tingling
| rythms. And yet, stranger to US, there
| are men who attempt to build their char
| acter without knowing in the end whether
| it shall be rude traitors den or a st.
Marks of Venice; men who begin to
| write the intricate poem of their lives
without knowing whether it shall be a
Homer's odyssey" or a rhymster's botch.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine men out
of thousand are living without any
| great life-plot. Booted and spurred, and
| plumed, and urging their swift courser in
the hottest haste. l come out and ask {:
| I1diiOO, ulau, WnltneF away Ills re-
| Spouse is: "Now here"
| Rush into the busy shop or store of
many one, and taking the plane out of
the mans hand and laying down the
yard-stick say: "What, man, is all this
about, so much stir and sweat" The re-
ply will stumble and break down between
teeth and lips.
| Every days duty ought only to be the
| inn 81 1,n 81 -
ence. Letmen be consistent. II they prefer
misdeeds to correct courses of action, then
let them draw out the design OF knavery,
and cruelty, and plumber. Let every days
falsehood and wrong-doing he added as
coloring to the picture. Let bloody deeds
red stripe the canvas, and the clouds of a
wruthful God hang down heavily over the
canvas, ready to break out in clamorous
tempest. Let the waters be chafed, a
froth-tangle, and green with immeasura-
BILE depths. Then take torch of burning
pitch and scorch into the frame of the
picture the right name for it; namely, the
| ps suicide
II one entering upon sinful directions
would only, in his mind or on paper, draw
out in in awful reality this dreadful flu.
ture, he would recoil from it, and say:
Am / a Dante, that by my own life /
should write another Inferno?" But if
you are res olved to live life such as God
and good men will approve, do not let it
be vague dream. an indefinite deter.
mination, but in your mind or upon paper
sketch it in all its minuti@. You can not
know the changes to which you may be
subjected, but you may know what al
ways will be right and always will be
wrong. Let gentleness, and charity, and
veracity, and faith stand in the heart of
the sketch. On some still brooks bank
make lamb and lion lie down together.
Draw two or three of the trees of life not
frost-stricken, nor ice-glazed, nor wind
stripped. but with thick verdure
waving like the palms of
Heaven. On the darkest cloud
place the rainbow, that billow of the DIV.
ing storm. You need not burn the title
on the frame. The du lest will catch the
design at glance, and say: THAT is the
road to Heaven" All, me! On this sea OF
life what innumerable ships, heavily laden
and well rugged, yet some bound for
another port. Swept every whittier of
wind and wave, they go up by the mount
aims thew 90 down nv fba hillowc n nd n 70